It's still the good old days in Anza

ANZA -- Driving north on Highway 371 toward Anza, a visitor
searching for the heart of this rural ranching community wouldn't
have to look any farther than a small green sign sticking up on the
side of the road.

It reads, simply, "School."

There is but one public educational facility here, serving the
needs of the town's approximately 8,000 residents on a
kindergarten-through-12th grade campus called Hamilton School. And
when it comes to entertainment, the attention of the townsfolk is
squarely pointed toward Hamilton's high school athletics.

In a time when many small towns' growth is accompanied by a
tug-of-war over loyalties to multiple high schools, this is clearly
an exception.

"There's nothing else to do up here, so people will go to games
on Friday nights," said Debbie Postin, a clerk at the Anza Village
Market, whose four children have all been involved in sports at
Hamilton over the years. "Most everybody will go up there. They
love their team up here. They really do."

Mostly, they come out to see Hamilton football. Other Bobcats
teams, especially boys and girls basketball, draw well, but even
when the weather gets frigid, fans fill the stands to cheer on the
team that has won 15 straight playoff appearances.

Hamilton football coach and athletic director Mike Schroeder
said he often runs into Bobcats supporters around town, and some
aren't shy with their opinions on how he should be running the
offense or who should be playing middle linebacker.

Quite frequently, Schroeder said, those suggestions come from
people who don't have children in the football program or even at
the school.

Schroeder said those are the times he understands the grip
Hamilton's teams have on the town.

"The community does a great job supporting us. They want to
win," he said. "They know what it would be like if we didn't have
this."

That seems to have a lot to do with just how well the teams are
supported.

Until 1988, high school-age students living in the Anza Valley
traveled by bus an hour each way to attend Hemet High School.
Hamilton eventually added a small high school, and about 10 years
later received a grant from the state to erect a new building and
add acceptable athletic facilities.

Now, members of the Bobcats football team gather for pregame
meals at Ciro's Mountain Restaurant just down the hill from the
school, and many of the Friday night spectators shuffle in there
after games.

"It feels good to have them here," owner Beatriz Putzer said.
"You try to help the community, so we do what we can."

Putzer and her husband, Ken, have only been in town nine years,
but many other families have deeper roots in the community. Nick
Hamilton, for instance, is not only a senior defensive lineman who
played on last year's football team, but is also a descendant of
explorer James Hamilton, who settled in 1870 on what were then
called the Cahuilla Plains and for whom the school was named when
the original school opened in 1913.

From the school's football field, one can look out over those
plains and see a scene very much unchanged from James Hamilton's
times.

And on Friday evenings in the fall, the lights on the football
field can be seen from all around.

"To me, this is probably the last small town in Southern
California," Schroeder said. "We're talking about true American
small towns, something you might find in west Texas.